The first thing you need to know about my brother-in-law is that he is a fantastic fellow. The second thing you need to know is that he is a paramedic (and former firefighter). The third thing you need to know is that he is incredibly tall. If I’m correct, I think he’s around 6’7″. So when he wanted to know if I would make him an extra long quilt for his bed at the station, I agreed.
He asked for a Star of Life pattern which meant only one thing – reverse applique. I’d never done it before, but that didn’t matter too much. It was a quick study with the help of a projector. I simply traced it on to the blue fabric, cut out the snake design, placed white fabric behind it, and then I used a close-set zig zag stitch to bring it all together.
One unexpected perk of this quilt was my choice to use a white fabric with a nice sheen for the white base. I don’t remember why I had that huge cut of satin(?), but I decided to use it up for this quilt. My sister ordered some ambulance fabric that wasn’t too cutesy and had it sent to me. I used that fabric to add length to the quilt, especially as it needed to be extra long to suit my extra tall brother-in-law.
The next detail is my favorite. I added a red border to make sure it had a nice hang on the sides, and somewhere in there I thought about quilting in a heartbeat pattern in the red border! I had to make sure my research was solid on this because the last thing I wanted to do was quilt in a cardiac arrest into this man’s quilt. The rhythm ended up being easy enough, and I loved how it turned out.
Related blogs and posts:
Perceptions and Perspectives of a Paramedic
Quest Quilts 
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